Throughout the election cycle, the punditry repeated the conventional wisdom that the GOP had been so clever in their gerrymandering that it would be extremely difficult for the Democrats to make progress in the House. Today's Wall Street Journal explores the idea that instead of helping GOP incumbents, their overreaching on redistricting was the reason several incumbents lost:
Gerrymandering was supposed to cement Republican control of the House of Representatives, offering incumbents a wall of re-election protection even as public opinion turned sharply against them. Instead, the party's strategy of recrafting district boundaries may have backfired, contributing to the defeats of several lawmakers and the party's fall from power.The conventional wisdom was wrong again -- especially in Pennsylvania and Florida.
The reason: Republican leaders may have overreached and created so many Republican-leaning districts that they spread their core supporters too thinly. That left their incumbents vulnerable to the type of backlash from traditionally Republican-leaning independent voters that unfolded this week.
Hat Tip Political Wire.
